


At Least Three Reasons

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Tumblr Prompts [13]
Category: The 100
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, basically raven tries to understand who/why/how zeke is, just a psa, right after that sneak peak scene, the new ep comes out tomorrow so there's nothing actually spoiler-y here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: For the prompt: "write a kiss...out of envy or jealousy"





	At Least Three Reasons

The door wasn’t closed for a second before Raven was sliding across the floor, pulling the rope out of Murphy’s mouth. His eyes were unblinking on the ceiling and they were both breathing heavily, albeit easier, now that there wasn’t a knife at his throat.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, knowing the response could only be relative. Her tears were still wet on her cheeks, and that was enough of an answer.

Murphy lowered his eyes, not fully focused on her before his own question came, “Are you?”

Which meant, of course, that neither of them were actually okay, but they were okay enough, and that the ground hadn’t changed at all.

There was a footfall behind them and Raven remembered that the pilot was still in the room. Murphy remembered too, and he struggled to sit up, leaning heavily towards her, instantly wary.

“Don’t tell them anything,” he said, urgently, fear coloring his voice. In his eyes, Raven saw that the warning was for himself as well as for her, a pact, to not break this time, no matter the cost. She nodded slightly, understanding, and Murphy slumped back against the bench again. His eyes closed and Raven tried to push down the worry that was welling up inside of her. He’d taken more hits that her, both from the Eligius mens’ fists and the shock collar, and he couldn’t be doing as well as he was putting on. Hell,  _she_ wasn’t doing as well as she was putting on, and she and pain were old friends. It was one of the things that she and John had always had in common.

The pilot coughed.

Murphy’s eyes stayed shut, but his lips split into a sardonic smile. “Time for good cop to play good cop; that checks out.”

“Hey,” Raven said soothingly, even though her mind was already racing ahead, “Let’s not kick the gun that saved the neck of yours, yeah?”

They would kill Murphy.

In a heartbeat, in a hot second, they would kill John, if they thought it would get them something out of her. They knew she was the one who’d hacked the ship, although she had no idea what the nonsense about the missiles was…it didn’t matter; they thought she did.

Murphy was still in defensive mode, eyes screwed tight, and pain seeping in as the adrenaline faded, and Raven lowered her voice.

“Can you just keep the snark to a minimum? I’ll see why the pilot’s helping us.”

At that, Murphy cracked an eye open. “You serious?”

Raven raised an eyebrow and Murphy huffed. “I mean, I can think of at least three reasons.”

When she tilted her head in confusion, he rolled his eyes, lifting his hand to her face. His thumb brushed her cheek, her chin, and then just below her eye, and it was Raven’s turn to roll her eyes. She doubted her crying was what had turned the man, but Murphy was looking way too proud of himself for her to fight him on that.

She swatted his hand away, rising to her feet with gritted teeth. Murphy’s eyes slid closed and Raven turned.

The pilot was on the other end of the room, his posture tense, and his expression unreadable.

Which was odd.

Because when he’d pulled the gun on the McCreary—was that the animal’s name?—she’d been able to see everything on his face.

She swayed slightly, and concern shot over his expression, and it wasn’t what she’d been expecting, but it was readable, so she’d take it.

Raven crossed across the room, sitting on the bench closest to him, facing outwards. Behind her, Murphy groaned softly, and Raven made herself ignore it. As the adrenaline faded out of both of them, they were going to feel markedly worse, so she had to get this pilot to talk with her while she could focus.

“You’re the pilot?” she asked, wishing her voice didn’t sound so tired.

The man nodded, but didn’t elaborate.

Raven pursed her lips. “I know a century’s a long time, but surely you can’t have forgotten your name.”

“Shaw,” he said. And that was it.

“As in George Bernard or David E?”

The pilot looked like he was fighting with a smile, and he barely lost, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly. “As in Miles Ezekiel.”

Raven whistled; that was a mouthful.

The miniscule smile grew miniscule amount wider and Raven knew she was getting distracted, but a part of her marvelled at that. He had a nice face, and she bet it was a sight lit in a smile. Behind her, Murphy’s breathing had evened out; a part of her wanted to panic that he was still, and the other dared to hope that he’d fallen asleep.

“So,” she rolled her neck, the collar limiting the motion, “Miles Ezekiel Shaw. You saved John’s neck from a knife, how about mine from a collar?”

He considered her for a moment, then pushed away from the door. Steady steps carried him across the room to her, and Raven made herself sit still. She’d been right, he had saved them. But now that it was just him and her and John it felt…different? He felt different. He was standing in front of her then and Raven licked her lips, arching her neck slightly so that he would have access to the latch on the left side of it. He hesitated for a moment, before stepping closer, his fingers cool as they brushed against her neck.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Raven chanced a look up at him. His jaw was clenched and his eyes her narrowed slightly, focused. And maybe ‘nice face’ was a bit of an understatement, because his touch and his eyes and his face up close were saying something a little less PG about Miles Ezekiel Shaw.

She cleared her throat. “Um, don’t worry about it.”

Silence fell again, and broken by the sounds of Murphy’s steady breathing behind her, and fingers on the metal around her neck.

“Shaw.”

She looked back up at the pilot again. “Deja vu.”

Again, that glimpse of a smile. “Cute. No, I meant most people call me Shaw.”

Maybe it was the torture or maybe it was the proximity, but Raven couldn’t stop the words as they slipped out. “I’m not most people.”

His hands stilled, and his eyes darted down to hers. For a moment, he just stared at her, then he shook his head, shook himself. “No,” he said quietly, almost like it was to himself. “I guess not.”

She wasn’t sure what that was about, and his face was back to unreadable. Maybe she should let it rest, but…Myles was a 16 year old. Myles was a scared kid, Myles followed orders and the crowd, Myles’ ended up dead after biological warfare. Myles just didn’t fit the pilot in front of her.

“Well,” she sighed, “I knew a Myles, once, so that’s out. And, like I said, Shaw’s going to make me think of a playwright or a comp sci guy, so looks like you’re stuck with Zeke.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, or several somethings, but he finally responded with, “And what’s wrong with a comp sci guy?”

She didn’t want to look up at him, to risk chasing some of the amusement on his voice away. “I mean,” she said carefully, running her hands along the top of her pants. “No offense to whoever your hacker is, but I’m the comp sci guy.”

There was a puff of air on her shoulders and Raven’s smile broke before she could stop it. Had that been a laugh? She looked up again at Zeke and he shook his head.

“I won’t argue with you there,” he said easily, “that was a tidy encryption you whipped up out of the walls that were supposed to keep you locked out.”

Raven smirked. “Picasso had his paintbrushes; I have my…” she trailed off, blinking. Again, there was a puff of air on her shoulder as Zeke chuckled, and Raven couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “You?”

“Okay, you don’t have to sound that shocked,” he said, in a voice that, in another life, might’ve been teasing. But he seemed to catch himself, something flashing behind his eyes, and he refocused on the collar. Raven was still processing the fact the pilot—the very cute, very kind pilot with the calm voice and jawline—was the one that almost punched a hole in her code.  _Her_ code. Before she could wrap her mind around it, the collar gave way, and Raven hissed when it scraped down the sensitive skin of her neck, her eyes screwing shut.

She heard Zeke move and suddenly he was on the bench next to her, carefully lifting the metal off her skin and checking underneath it for further damage. His hands were gentle and his fingers tentative, and Raven didn’t realize she was leaning into his touch until she blinked and his face was right there.

Neither of them moved.  

He was a pilot. He was also her captor. Also her rescuer. And a hacker, and presumably a prisoner at some point, but then presumably army before that. He was lots of things and yet not any of them and it was too much to try to read it in his eyes because she could tell he was doing the same with her.

Of course, Murphy chose that moment to groan in his sleep, and Zeke started.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “Um, I should help him—”

“Don’t.”

At her sudden interruption, Zeke looked confused and Raven pulled at the hair still sticking to her neck, distracted.

“Let him rest,” she said softly, turning to look down at Murphy. She was surprised he’d actually fallen asleep, although maybe relieved was a more accurate term. He’d probably wake soon, fitful, in pain, and whatever he could get now, would serve him well.

She felt Zeke’s eyes on her, and she wasn’t sure what he was reading on her face when she turned to look at him. She didn’t get a chance to figure it out either, because he looked away sharply, down at the metal in his hands, like he needed the weight of it to remind him of something.

“Why’d you help us?”

She’d told Murphy she’d ask, but the words didn’t slip out because of him. Raven asked because she needed to know, because of all the roles that Zeke had,  she needed to know which he lived by.

His hands were fidgeting on the collar, and she watched his jaw clench and unclench as he considered her words.

“ _Mea máxima culpa_ ,” he said at length, and Raven played them back through her head, not understanding.

“Is that Latin?” she asked, and Zeke looked up at her.

“Oh, do you not have…figures. Right. Uh,” he shook his head, and smiled, something painted, “It doesn’t matter. I should get that collar off your boyfriend.”

Raven blinked. “My what?”

Zeke frowned, his eyes flitting to Murphy, before back to Raven. “Isn’t he your—”

Raven didn’t mean to laugh, but she figured that was probably the best response anyways. John stirred slightly and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Once her breathing was steadied, she pulled it away slowly. “No. Definitely no, no. Good friend, for sure; we go way back…it’s a long story, however you spin it. His current girlfriend is on the ground, although,” Raven shrugged, “they’re not so into labels these days.”

She looked back at Zeke then, his expression once again inscrutable. And her next question she had neither promised John, nor planned herself, but it slipped out all the same. “Does it matter?”

At her question, Zeke drew in a quick breath, like he had anticipated it, but hadn’t expected it. And then he looked at her, and he looked at her like he might say one thing, or another, or everything or nothing, and Raven understood, because she was at a loss for words too.

She realized how close they were on the bench, and how tightly he was gripping the collar. How fifteen minutes ago, his hands had clenched around a different type of metal. How the air was still thick with what almost happened, and how she was sure her cheeks were still stained. And in the middle of the  _Who are you_  and  _What do they want with us_  and  _Are we going to live through this_ , there was one thing that Raven hadn’t said.

_Thank you._

So she kissed him.

Leaned across the bench, across the breath between them, her eyes on his until just before she brushed her lips against his mouth, when they slid closed. Raised a hand from her leg to rest on the jaw he’d been clenching since he kicked McCreary out, spread her fingers up his cheek and pulled him to her. Tasted him, tasted the ground and air that wasn’t recycled and reused and something more, something richer. It wasn’t a heady kiss, wasn’t overwhelming like billows or like lightning, but when she drew back, it took more control than she was expecting to stay away.

She pursed her lips, drew in a shaky breath, waited for his eyes to open.

And they did.

He blinked slowly, his expression dazed. As he pulled back, his eyes flitted between hers, searching, and Raven pulled her lower lip into her mouth, surprisingly nervous.

“Um, thank you,” she said, her voice breathless. “For looking out for us.”

He nodded.

Cognizance was creeping back over his face, settling with the awed expression there, and he seemed to be gathering his thoughts. After a second, he let out a short laugh, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck in a bashful gesture.

“I’m trying to think of a way to say ‘anytime’ without sounding too cavalier.”

Raven felt a smile work its way across her face, and it only grew when Zeke responded to it with one of his own.

On the other side of that door, almost 300 criminals wanted them dead. Beyond that, some 800 that wanted Eligius, and inside, Murphy and she with enough residual damage from the last couple of hours to last them a lifetime. But, sitting on the bench, smiling into a pair of soft brown eyes, Raven couldn’t be bothered with any of it. She had her cockroach and a pilot, and they had her; they’d be okay.   

**Author's Note:**

> "mea máxima culpa" is a line from the Confiteor, the Catholic prayer for penance. The context of it is "I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault", because you bet zeke carries everything he does personally.


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